


he's a gentle being (hold him softly lest he breaks)

by olivemartini



Series: All The Lovely Ones Have Scars [16]
Category: Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: F/M, Fix It Fic, Fluff, Pepper doesn't know what to get him, Pepper really is trying guys, Pre-Iron Man, Pre-Relationship, it's tony's birthday
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-09
Updated: 2018-06-09
Packaged: 2019-05-20 07:27:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,048
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14890178
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/olivemartini/pseuds/olivemartini
Summary: It's his birthday, and Pepper doesn't know what to get him, because what do you get for the man who can have everything?Nothing.Nothing at all, so in a fit of desperation she went online and symbolically adopted the world's smallest porpoise, which are rapidly approaching extinction, and hopes that he at least finds it sort of funny.





	he's a gentle being (hold him softly lest he breaks)

**Author's Note:**

> just a little one shot this time. not really a story, but I hope you like it anyways.
> 
> And also, to everyone who commented, thank you, thank you, thank you! I will reply to you eventually, but I read all of your comments the moment the notification came in.

His birthday was sort of a train wreck.

Not because it bad, but just because it added so much extra work and Tony seemed incapable of deciding anything on his own, so it was Pepper who chose everything- the cake, the decorations, even what band would play, but she drew the line at the guest list.

"Come on, Tony."  she lays the paper down in front of him, intending to bribe him wit whatever it took to get him to tear himself away from the car engine he was trying to fix.  "You just have to sign off on this, make sure I haven't forgotten anyone important."

(God forbid she forget to add the name of some girl he wants to hook up with, or added the name of some ex-girlfriend she didn't know existed.  Pepper still wasn't that good at juggling rich people politics, but she was learning.)

"It's fine."  He doesn't even look at it, and he must have heard her sigh from across the room, because then he really does look over at it, accidently spreading oil smudges all over the paper.  "Really."  Now that his attention was away from the car he didn't seem to be able to throw himself back into the project, just crosses the room back to her and hands her the paper, leaning in to kiss her on the cheek when he passes like its second nature.  Maybe it is.  They've been crossing a lot of lines, lately.  Pepper's thinking its just about time to have one of those conversations where she reminds him of appropriate barriers and work place conduct, but not before his birthday.  "Whatever you do is going to be great."

 

 

 

 

Which is all fine and dandy for him to say, really, but he's not the one planning a party for their boss, particularly a boss that manages to seem like he's incredibly excited and not able to give a damn all at once. Not to mention the fact that she doesn't have a clue what to get him, but what do you get for the man that can buy anything he wants without thinking about it?

Nothing.

There's nothing you can get them, which is why she scrolls through pinterest during her lunch break and keeps the question in the back of her mind while she snaps orders at the caterers and the people there to set up the tent and the moving man coming in with Tony's new tv, which was interesting, because she hadn't known that Tony had broke his old one.  She tries, really, tries to think of things she could buy and presents she could make, about if there was a movie he would like to see or tickets to a concert that he would not think to buy for himself, but the fact that he's Tony Stark keep getting in the way- there is no show that she can bring him to that he coul not get backstage passes to just by showing up on the sidewalk, so all in all, by the time its midnight the night before the party, she's almost about to give up, o to bed and tell him that the party was his present.

Assistants didn't need to get presents for their bosses, right?  They could just get them their coffee extra fast or something, right?  

_Pep._

_Pepper._

There's a text from Tony, rapid fire, and Pepper groans, because she was so, so close to falling asleep.

_Officially my birthday and no text from you?  I'm disappointed._

Pepper does sigh, taps out a response, and then decides to leave it until morning, turning to open her computer instead.

She had a present to find.

 

 

 

The party went great.  Pepper wants to be able to say that she knew it would, but she hadn't, really, because Tony hadn't really given her any instructions on what she would like and in her head, Pepper was just planning the sort of party she thinks that Tony would throw himself, had he ever poked his head out of his garage long enough to want one.

"This is amazing."  He bursts from the crowd to stand beside her at the makeshift bar without her noticing his approach, but that's not surprising.  Since the party started, Pepper had officially removed herself from work and stationed herself beside the bartender, where she could eat as many cupcakes as she wanted without people staring at her.  "The best thing ever, really."

He seems to mean it.  She squints at him, but he really does seem genuinely happy  And not happy as in the sense that he's had too many drinks to dull the ache and the world will be bright and shiny and lovely for a few hours, but happy in the sense that he is pleased with how is life is at that particular moment.  Pepper has known him long enough to be able to tell what a blessing that really is.

"I'm glad."  She's got frosting covering her fingers, but he doesn't seem to notice when he reaches over to take her hand in his.  "I was worried about it."

They have to yell to be heard over the music.  Pepper sort of wants to push him back into the crowd, both because they are starting to draw funny looks and also because she wants him to have fun, but the other part of her, the selfish part, wants him to stay there with her.  No sane person would want to be the girl at the bar, all by herself, eating a large quantity of chocolate cupcakes.  

"You shouldn't have been.  You should never be."  It is one of those moments that he makes too intense, pulling the emotion out of nowhere.  Tony can do nothing in moderation.  "There's nothing you could do that could disappoint me, Ms. Potts."

Whenever he calls her by her last name, his voice is softer, kinder, like he is trying to tell her something that Pepper cannot figure out.  

"Good."  She is suddenly aware of the way her hands are splayed across the table and how her shoulders are hunched in, how stupid she must look compared to all these other women.  How they must know it, too, sense that even though Tony has caused a temporary breach in the way life works, she does not belong with them.  "That's good, Tony."

"Yeah."  He raps his knuckles on the counter and tilts his head, listening to the calls of his friends to come back and join the party.  "Well."  He goes to kiss her on the cheek again but Pepper turns away, and the motion is just an awkward dip of the head, like he had lost his balance.  "Duty calls, Pep.  Duty calls."

 

 

 

At the end, it is a good night, even though the night was quickly turning into morning and most of the guest rooms (and the living room, and the kitchen, and the lawn, honestly) was filled with people who hadn't known their limits, leaving Tony and Pepper to avoid the mess by sitting out on the front porch, digging into what was left of his cake.

"Okay, god's honest truth,"  Tony says, talking around a mouthful of frosting, raising his hand like he is making a solemn oath to the empty air.  "That was the best birthday I've ever had.  Thank you, Pepper."

He is too soft, too sincere, his eyes looking at her for too long, like he is seeing everything that she is not willing to say.  

"I wanted you to have fun."  Tony doesn't think she knows, but Pepper had seen the weight that this life had put on shoulders- the nights he spent scribbling his way through stacks of paperwork even though he claimed not to work, the times he squabbled with HR about getting better insurance for his workers, how sometimes, he would see a report from the military about what his weapons had done and a frown would flit over his face, like he is trying to see the truth of his life but can't quite make it there.  "Fun without being drunk."

"Yes, the alcohol was mysteriously hard for me to get to, who would have thought?"  He smiled at her, and Pepper counts herself lucky again, because another boss would not take it very well when their assistant instructs the caterers not to give him any drink, no matter how many times he asked for it.  She's sure he still managed to get his hands on something, though.  "But I did have fun.  It was the best present you could have given me."

"But that's not your present!"  She had meant to give it to him earlier, but the guests were there with all the flashy presents that they piled up on the gift table, and Pepper could not force herself to hand hers over and register the look of forced gratitude on his face.  "I got you a present."

"You didn't have to."  He's half amused by the idea, watching her rustle through the stack of papers on her clip board until she comes up with a certificate.  "I didn't expect you to."

"Don't thank me yet,"  She mutters, shoving it into his hands, trying to tell what he is thinking by the look across his face.

"This is-,"

"A certificate, yes."

"Saying that I'm?"

"The proud parent of a symbolically adopted vaquita."  It was the world's smallest porpoise, rapidly approaching extinction.  There's under fifty left.  Pepper used to be obsessed with them.  "Your donation is protecting them from oil spills as we speak."

He stares at her for another moment, long enough that she is about to take it back and tell him that she could get him something different if he would only tell her  _what_ to get him, but then he wraps her in a hug, shoulders shaking with silent laughter.  

"You are my absolute favorite person on this earth, Pepper Potts,"  Tony says, and even though she thinks he is only humoring her, he is tracing the outlines of the curving ink with a reverence that makes her think he really did like it.  

 

 

 

It's only later, when they're gathering up abandoned plates of half eaten cake and plastic cups, throwing them into a garbage bag while Tony groans on about wasted talent that he tells her the truth, all the while looking at the mess he was wiping away instead of at her.  About how he never had a real birthday party, not since it was little, unless you counted being at MIT when the older kids would drag him to a bar to celebrate and then have him foot the bill.  About how he was just going to get drunk in the garage and sleep it off, or maybe, if he was feeling slightly more stable, cook a nice dinner for the two of them.  About how he never thought that anyone would care about him enough to throw him a birthday party without him asking for it, where thinking of the things he needed had become second nature.

When he's done, Pepper doesn't really know what to say.  She wants to say sorry, and she wants to scream at every other person that walked through his life and treated him so carelessly, and she also wants to hug him, but none of that seemed like the right thing to do, so she just stays there, holding onto the plastic garbage bag.

"So I meant it, when I said that you didn't need to get me anything."  He swallowed hard and stared determinedly at the ceiling.  "You're the best thing that could ever have happened to me."

 _That's how I feel about you,_ she wants to say, but that would have been a bit of a lie, because a lot of the time she thinks he is the worst thing.  They aren't mutually exclusive.  

"You deserve birthday parties,"  She says instead, when what she wants to say is that he deserves to have someone who cares about him that much and that she would be that person until someone better came along.  "And as long as I'm here you're going to get them."

It does not fix things, but in a way it feels like it does.

**Author's Note:**

> come find me on Instagram @olive.writes.fanfic
> 
> btw the vaquita is a real thing and it is quickly dying, in case any of you were looking to help save a porpoise in need today


End file.
